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Last para is a near-identical copy of the Jargon File entry; possibly an identical copy of an older version. The Jargon File is public domain, but ESR does request that quoters cite source and version/date. What's Wikipedia etiquette in situations like this? Mike Capp ( talk) 12:58, 9 October 2004 (UTC)
I don't get how 无 wú is supposed to be so metaphysical. Isn't 无 wú much the same as saying 没有 méiyǒu? i.e. "Q) Have dogs got Buddha-nature? A) No they haven't."
It is sort of cool that it has been turned into an answer to loaded questions, even if that doesn't have much to do with its original meaning. :) — Helpful Dave ( talk) 18:32, 7 April 2005 (UTC)
I removed the character "冇" from the wiki because it's not equivalent to 無 in Cantonese. They are synonyms, but they have different tones, and are used in different situations in the language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.16.46.231 ( talk) 17:41, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
A couple of comments:
PizzaMargherita 18:58, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Removed this parenthetical:
As a demonstration of how hackers are sensitive to logical inadequacies it's not interesting enough—answering "yes" to what looks like but is not a disjunction is probably not specific to hackers at all. Delighting in its use as a rhetorical device (as opposed to a stale joke) might be, though. JRM · Talk 22:39, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Is the large image of the simplified character helpful or necessary, really? The text was put down in "traditional" characters, and even in the PRC guwen is often printed using traditional characters. IMHO, the small one in the introduction is plenty, but since it's so big I want to see if there are any objections first. siafu 22:25, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Chinese | ||
---|---|---|
Mandarin | Wú | |
Shanghainese | ||
Cantonese | mou5 | |
Min Nan | ||
Hakka | ||
Japanese | mu | |
Korean | mu |
This looks really ugly to me, even if I change it to class="wikitable". There are too many empty boxes. Isn't there a template for this? — Keenan Pepper 19:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Please see definition 2 in: here . Don't know where it was listed originally, but it seems many sources print the same data. -MexIndian
In the koan of Joshu, as I've seen it interpreted, his answer of "mu" does not literally mean "no". His mu is closer to the Discordian use of the word. It transcends or nullifies the question. Mumon's commentary on the koan includes a poem that helped me grasp some inkling of meaning:
Has a dog Buddha-nature? This is the most serious question of all. If you say yes or no, You lose your own Buddha-nature.
Source: http://www.ibiblio.org/zen/gateless-gate/1.html
- Rhiannon314
I added a link to exception handling to the "see also" section but it was removed by Jpatokal with the comment "err, no (and I'm a software engineer)". I disagree; I think exception handling is closely related to the answer "mu", but would like consensus.
Consider an array class that throws an exception if you overrun the array (the equivalent of using vector::at(size_t)
in C++). That is, if you have a size-two array and access element five, it throws an exception. This seems exactly like the exchange
Am I mistaken? It seems like throwing an exception makes sense exactly when a function call makes invalid assumptions, just like mu is an appropriate answer to questions that make invalid assumptions. —Ben FrantzDale 12:24, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
*NULL
does not throw a C++ exception even though it might. In another language, the arr[5] += arr[0]
example would throw an exception. Just because C++ doesn't throw an exception doesn't mean it's not logically an exception.McKay is right: this is fanciful, at best. You can draw connections between any number of concepts of nothingness in religion, philosophy, science and mathematics; there is nothing particularly pertinent or notable between exception handling and Zen mu. — Piet Delport 03:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
This wants a citation:
It seems whimsical enough that it might unfortunately be false, so I've moved it here in the hopes that a knowledgeable individual will corroborate its truth. Omphaloscope talk 22:50, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree that this article regarding Mu as Chao Chu's answer to "Does a dog have Buddha nature?" is way off the mark. IMHO there should be a separate entry for Mu (Wu) as understood in Zen practice. I'm afraid that the way this is written at the moment it will give quite the wrong impression of the importance of Mu in koan study by Zen practitioners. This is one of the most important koans in Zen and this article does not do it justice. Thinman10 06:56, 16 January 2007 (UTC)thinman10
First off great article, I've been using the term for a number of years now, and wanted to reference it in a wikipedia discussion, so I went after a link, at the DAB page for " Mu" I almost didn't click on the link because it was labeled "Mu (negative)" and I don't think that it's best used as a negative, if a negative answer was meant, then "no" would be used. "mu" means "unask the question" or "the question cannot be answered because it depends on incorrect assumptions" I'm proposing a move. Mu (unask)? or Mu (response)? or something. I don't know the topic well enough to say anything very well, but whatever. I think I'll at least bring it up for you all to think about. (oh, and I'm watching the page now, so I'll be back :D) McKay 04:36, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
I call into question the accuracy of this article... -- Furrykef 04:19, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
"Category: Chinese Words and Phrases" uses the Japanese pronunciation. I tried to add "wu" as the Chinese pronunciation on but don't see how to do it. Could anyone help? ch ( talk) 18:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Would it not be better to cite/include the original Discordian parable instead of/in additon to the Jargon File's take on it?
Original is here: http://www.principiadiscordia.com/book/55.php 75.169.101.160 ( talk) 12:27, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
In the lead one use is typically, the other use is 'more famously', how can you have more famous than typical usage? One use should be say 'grammatically used' the other say 'commonly used as' perhaps ? LeeVJ ( talk) 21:23, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
Could someone provide pronunciation at the very beginning for English speakers? Moo or Mew? (Plain-English pronunciation, please, not IPA, which, statistically speaking, nobody understands and nobody uses. Thanks - Tempshill ( talk) 21:04, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm removing the following entries from the "cultural references" section:
Because there is no other information included to make them notable. Why does it appear on Yasujiro Ozu's grave? What made the concept so important to him that it bears mentioning here? If it bears mentioning, there should be a section dedicated to the concept in his work (or at least a mention of it in the thematic section of his article), and then the link here should point to that. The same applies to the Philip K Dick novel. A simple mentioning won't do, and even then it should be fairly notable as to why it's important.
Neither of the anime references are particularly notable, and do not belong here.
∴
Walkeraj
16:19, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
There are far too many "citations needed". For instance, the quote from "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" has a "citation needed"! You don't need to source claims that a verifiable document contains a statement. Even if you did, it would be worthless: you'd end up adding a claim that (e.g.) "Essays on ZatAoMM" states that ZatAoMM states that ... - which is not an improvement at all.
Please double-check when citation is needed, before adding such remarks. 82.210.249.81 ( talk) 10:22, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
This is a kind of funny topic, but I can't really write about it on the main page because it would be original research. I don't have access to my copy of Joshu's text right now either.
If you read classical Chinese, there is nothing mysterious whatsoever in the original koan. Joshu is asked whether a dog has Buddha nature. He replies "Wu" which means "it doesn't have it". That's it, case closed. The koan (the original, not the Gateless Gate version) then has two more lines, where the monk asks what the dogs nature is, and Joshu replies something like "it has the nature of demons and devils".
There is another koan in the original text where Joshu is asked the same question, and he replies that a dog does have Buddha nature. Joshu is all about screwing with language. He has many, many koans where the point (in my opinion) is that meaning is always relative.
People mostly know about this through The Gateless Gate, which gives one interpretation, Rinzai koan practice, and then American books like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Godel, Escher, Bach. This has led to some extremely strange ideas of what "Mu" means.
What it literally means is a negative that indicates something is not present: in this case, Buddha nature. It has no other literal interpretation in that context. Everything else is the opinions of various interpreters.
-- Mujokan ( talk) 14:08, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
I cut out this phrase, which is pure opinion: "Therefore, to answer "no" is to deny their wisdom, whereas to say "yes" is to blindly follow their teachings." It is impossible to be so categorical here.
I also put in a reference to the fact that the literal answer Joshu gives is that the dog does not have Buddha nature. This can easily be checked in any Chinese dictionary. Many non-literal interpretations are possible, of course, but that is the literal meaning.
-- Mujokan ( talk) 14:17, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Moved Mu (negative) to Mu (no thing) and Talk:Mu (negative) to Talk:Mu (no thing). Moved to a neutral title, given that the English phrase "no thing" translates best the most understood meaning of the word Mu 無 in use alone, both in English and in Japanese. Get used to the idea folks that words have more than one meaning, and more than one usage! (in practice) If you don't like the recognition here of the very common words having much more than a mundane meaning, as well as the very common usage of the mundane meaning in combination words of not~ eg. 無分別, then you're free to create a new page, add it to the MU disambiguation page as Mu (not) or similar, and thereby *not* lazily comment here in talk on your personal partiality(s) of the word. Please! If you're gonna work on it, learn Japanese word mui 無為, Chinese Wú wéi, as another clarification, of multiple usages and meanings of mu 無。-- Jase 06:49, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Not true, you evidently haven't done your homework, nor even read, evidently, the major first reference i provided. Previous talk earlier in this page was also characteristically poorly informed people who thought they were better informed than everyone else, they're not at all -a saying for articulateness: "a little bit of knowledge makes a dangerous thing". Reading this talk page does not constitute a gaining of verifiable knowledge. You seem bias. I did the work, you do some. Your absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence. Don't argue, with what evidently you don't know. How could you say this, you seem unlikely to substantially speak or read or have Japanese experience, which i do. What arrogance to call mine "dubious claims", out of your evident ignorance of this article's subject. Would you try to impose on me that i wasn't, for but one example of many, in a Japanese bookshop (in a small suburb in Aichi ken, outside from Nagoya, Japan) in 2000 reading a children's book with pages about no-thing-ness Mu written to teach young children, just the same way Christian westerners teach their children about Christian religion incl. Jesus. In Japan Mu (in the sense of spiritual nothingness) is nearly a 'household' word. Nearly every family has ancestral Buddhist traditions, and Mu is also learnt as part of ordinary upbringing conditioning of most children. Perhaps in the last ten years less so with further 'westernisation' of newer generations -but that would need evidence! Discuss it without bias or ignorance, cite evidence not your own bias, not informed, personal point of view. Searching internet dictionaries, which only include mundane word results, in the context of not reading my major first reference don't constitute evidence, just your absence of evidence. And you're wrong on onyomi - the word onyomi is a Japanese word, cf. kunyomi, that's just the start of your wrong misunderstanding. This seems relevant to your seeming bias: 'You don't have to *believe* in spirituality in order to be honest and respecting of spirituality in different people.' I will revert your edits, and return this article to the place where this article is neutral, and where it informs the reader, rather than your evident obscurant-ing. PS. some minority of my native-Japanese friends do not admit to understanding, or perhaps do not themselves have an understanding, of non-mundane meanings of the many words in Japanese which have multiple meanings with both mundane and non-mundane -more-than-mundane meanings-- Jase 11:33, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Furthermore now, mu is multiple words in J-E dictionaries, as the romaji reading of 無 (read as む in hiragana ie. mu again!).
むい (mui) may be any of: 無為, 無位, 無医, 無意, 無畏 ... -and some more kanji for readings of むい (mui).
Why didn't you take my advice above about 無為? Ignored it.
Why didn't you read my major first reference, dictionary?
Most importantly this article is about 無 (mu - read as む in hiragana), not any reading you like to choose of 無 (eg. む (mu) or な (na)) together with い (i).
This article is not at all about 無い (read as ない = nai)。(which translates to simple meaning no in English, the most basic Japanese of all, together with English simple yes which in Japanese is はい (hai) ). Don't tell me i'm wrong when you acted wrongly. -- Jase 12:53, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Hello! world!, especially Japanese world! You above i don't know what is wrong with your awareness? Very naive are you, i don't know?
Wrong, and wrong again, ... You're evidently ignoring and only writing about your lack of knowledge of 無 (read as む (mu) ) having multiple Japanese meanings, your bad - and your disrespectful perverse ignoring of me, of my writing here in Talk:Mu_(negative), in Mu_(negative) & of all the Japanese writings on this more-than-mundane-meanings of 無 (read as む (mu) ) obvious subject. ... So i'll talk with you-above only on your level only for hopes that you'll open your mind, or at least your eyes, to read what i've written here in Talk:Mu_(negative) & in Mu_(negative).
Your absence of evidence does not make evidence of absence. (Preserving my humility and keeping quiet about my Japanese skills and non-mundane understandings... !)
WWWJDIC has multiple dictionaries, of J-E more than fourteen dictionaries today, and always has had multiple dictionaries since i've been using it more than ten years.
WWWJDIC has particularly one of its dictionaries having the acronym "DDB" (abbreviated title).
WWWJDIC has "EDICT" (abbreviated title) which is the only one dictionary you used for quotes above, and is used for translation "of the word[s] in [to] English".
Also there's the indispensable "ENAMDICT" (abbreviated title) dictionary... people's names ...names of people can't get translated by WWWJDIC without it, or alternatively without the inclusive-of-ENAMDICT-&-EDICT "Special Text-glossing" dictionary. I could contact WWWJDIC creator Jim Breen at Monash but that would totally waste his time on a stupid Q which is obvious if you just use the full set of dictionaries... .
Don't waste everyones time.
Spoon-feeding you (any more than this) must not go on.
When you have reached awareness of what Jim Breen's WWWJDIC-acronym "DDB" (abbreviated title) abbreviates, then, only then, let us know. You disappoint.-- Jase 00:35, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
You get WP:CIVIL. You have been misconstruing my words. You have been ignoring my words. You have un-diplomatically, without evidence written perverse words of abuse of me, above. Take note, ie. WP:CIVIL. Take advice. Check & appreciate evidence, not you brutally-ignoring your own absence of evidence.-- Jase 03:17, 23 September 2010 (UTC) -> http://www.acmuller.net/wikipedia.html -take note!.-- Jase 03:27, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Your words have no point nor points. Your words don't know what words they're talking about, and now in the latest talk above have started backtracking and dissembling. You're wrong words, 'your bad', accept it, and move on...to your own good. WP:V does not and is not allowed to come from only within wikipedia's internal information, of course. You have ignored a world of evidence, outside Wikipedia and conveniently chosen mundane-only-dictionary results to deliberately bias your words here above. My experience in Japan, with Japanese people does not need proving to you at all; for one tiny-minority-instance in Japan by personal-loving-family-teachers, i was taught eleven years ago that in regards to printed dictionaries, at least the best quality dictionaries include various printed Shogakukan Inc. brand of dictionaries, not mere & possibly-poor-quantity-of-words type of Japanese dictionaries, but real quality scholarship in them; I have several dictionary books from them, from Japan. I don't even need to use those nowadays, as I have numerous Japanese dictionaries on my computers and access the best quality dictionaries online. My computer's built-in inadequate & humble dictionary even has the Japanese kanji 無 (per se, read as む (mu)), as several words' meanings in it, and it is far from the best dictionary i have. It comes from Shogakukan Inc. also, and it is not the best dictionary from Shogakukan Inc. i have, far from it. A raw quote, which i'm not going to spoon feed you any explanations on at all, from the seriously inadequate, but appearing to be better quality Shogakukan Inc. computer dictionary, than your it-appears-poor-use of Daijirin & Daijisen:
"
"
Japanese teachers typically wont tell you about non-mundane meanings of words until you demonstrate that you're mentally ready, this includes many ways of mind-readiness, including genuine civility - no personal attacks - assume good faith - neutral point of view and real respect for people. You're told here that 無 (per se, read as む (mu)) ≠ 無 (per se, read as な (na) ie. as used in 無い (ない)). Ask some advanced-in-education Japanese people about 無 (per se, read as む (mu)). Don't brutally-towards-humble-me pretend Daijirin and Daijisen as definitive, especially in the way you've used them here above. Below, a literary philosophy et. al. book quote, i deliberately leave un-referenced. A Japanese book amongst many. If you're more than an internet-Japanese speaker-writer, more than a machine-translation speaker-writer, more than a pocket-computer-translator speaker-writer & more than a conversationalist-mundane Japanese writer-speaker or reader, at all; Then correctly translate this, below. Numbers of my young native Japanese friends can't or don't want the hard work to translate it to English, more because of the lack of appropriate idiom words in English. So what chance have you got of doing so, and it's from a famous Japanese philosopher-writer-..., his summary book (総括編) of his many previous famous around the world book, writing-works. I own it, amongst much more. I have a go at translating it sometimes, but it is very much more-than-mundane word usages, as well known & famous a work in its English translations and in Japanese. He's published more than twelve Japanese books and much more, been translated into apparently 25 languages, i know of more than 10 languages; Travelled the world doing his works; Won awards, etc. etc. Young native Japanese friends say it's 難しい (difficult). You acted like you're so smart here above - put it up!
"
"
You won't find much of it in your mundane-day-to-day-world internet dictionary search interface results! Therefore you will learn something real doing it, not just glib internet searches above. Translation might even prove useful herein and for all, rather than your 'unreally' offender's act here. Get real.-- Jase 05:18, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
You also didn't search your Daijisen-dictionary favoured-interface properly, as well as everything else, wasting our time with your wrong research!
We shouldn't have to do it for you.
Your favoured dictionary search interface (which actually makes searching not very user friendly compared to mine) has it, here: "無" (per se, read as "む" (mu)) at Yahoo! Daijisen interface. Amateurish! evidently.
That Yahoo! Daijisen page reads out the Japanese which this very Wikipedia article's subject consists of, with multiple meanings - the 無 (per se, read as む (mu)). I don't waste everyone's time with evidently-pathetically-amateurish attempts to search, Yahoo!'s not-user-friendly interfaces to Daijisen.
Even my computer's inadequate & not-my-best dictionary makes finding so much easier than that, Yahoo!'s not-user-friendly interfaces to Daijisen. Daijirin made redundant in this talk, too. There's lots more meaning in this my talk here, for you to learn for yourself, i'm not going spoon feed any more to you. Not explain any more to you about this talk; And not going to spell any more out to you about Japanese. Don't waste our precious moments. Do your homework before talking here, and do your homework properly!
As per Wikipedia policy it is not a discussion forum, nor a Japanese language learning exercise for you at the expense of me, nor for your personal preferred indulgences.
-Wasting so much of our time with your lack of knowledge, even also of searching an internet dictionary properly, when you claim to be smarter than me on the subject, and gratuitously abused me, and, let alone the evidence in your words here of your (evident) lack of knowledge of culturally-rich spoken-Japanese or of proper literary written Japanese. Your offender acting annoyed me, do you feel happy that you did that.-- Jase 06:14, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Apologise sincerely ( User:Jpatokal);
You were wrong and still so.
I didn't advance anything or do any "good work digging", obvious evidence is you did very bad work, abused me on top of bad work, and so wasted our time. The "onus of proof" you got wrong.-- Jase 23:12, 23 September 2010 (UTC).
( User:Jpatokal) Don't move constructive talk on my Moved section out of my Moved section, hence renamed my section to Moving. and don't try to fake the order of talk here by moving your talk before mine perverting the signatures timestamps. You're wrong, admit it. Cease and desist vexing.-- Jase 23:36, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Apologise sincerely ( User:Jpatokal);
You were wrong and still so.
I didn't advance anything or do any "good work digging", obvious evidence is you did very bad work, abused me on top of bad work, and so wasted our time. The "onus of proof" you got wrong.-- Jase 23:12, 23 September 2010 (UTC).
( User:Jpatokal) Don't move constructive talk on my now Moving section out of my now Moving section, hence renamed my section to Moving. and don't try to fake the order of talk here by moving your talk before mine perverting the signatures timestamps. You're wrong, admit it. Cease and desist vexatiousness. Cease dissembling. etcetera.
Futhermore i'm under no obligation to you. Do some work on this article's subject. In this context you have recently cited no sources of evidence for anything at all, only your above absence of evidence paraded as if you know everthing, and now without evident remorse, and now backsliding & dissembling, and now deflecting in that most recent talk above. You have recently added no sources to the article, so have no place asking me to do more work on the article when you diverted and wasted, so much of our time. Do some work yourself, add sources, rather than removing work, rather than discouraging work, and rather than perversely-blame-deflecting. This article can be much improved when your obscuring information ceases, you admit openly, and apologise. Regarding previous assertions by you: You provide the evidence that there's no multiple meanings; that there's no usage in common in Japan; that your evident-above reality-denial-talk is in fact reality it self; etcetera; Or admit wrong here on all these assertions above, and then do some real work on this article's subject. On this article's subject your stand point above is now proven ignorance, not any evidence, and you've lost credibility on this article's subject. Your tedious citation requests constitute deflections constituting double standards, from your ignoring obvious observational evidence eg. ignoring dictionary evidence, ignoring the major first reference i did provide, and from you having recently added no encyclopaedic information or sources to this article's subject, rather you have been obscuring information here - Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words. In-denial tedium discouraging here. ... . -- Jase 10:36, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
User:Jpatokal has herein today proved an example, and an unsubtle example, of the scholarly, nuanced descriptions of significantly bad experiences with Wikipedia by a renowned Buddhist scholar, described herein: -> http://www.acmuller.net/ Please read therein.-- Jase 12:47, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
User:Jpatokal truth, neutrality and policy obliges you to understand the subject matter, before you come here to the article writing about the subject matter. Evidenced in your writing above, you clearly do not, and asserted invented understandings as you go along, with a lack evidence. Do not randomly quote internet sources based on searching for the keyword in them without understanding their meaning. Evidenced above, you haven't been able to even search properly for the keyword "無" (per se, read as "む" (mu)) in an internet Japanese dictionary.-- Jase 14:58, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Inside this Wikipedia article itself's ref no. 1
User:Jpatokal has quoted text, from his choice of reference book, as follows in the full ref quote:
" <ref name="baroni">Baroni, Helen Josephine. ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=smNM4ElP3XgC&lpg=PA229&ots=ZKAxX8v0ho&dq=joshu%20dog%20rinzai&pg=PA229#v=onepage&q=joshu%20dog%20rinzai&f=false The illustrated encyclopedia of Zen Buddhism]'', p.228. ''The word mu (Ch. wu) is a negation that can be translated as "no", "not", "nothing", or "without". ... Japanese Rinzai has classified the Mu Koan as a hosshin koan, that is, a koan appropriate for beginners seeking kensho, the initial enlightenment experience.''</ref> "
to give an unbalanced appearance towards certain viewpoints, when the reference book itself does, on Mu Kôan [sic], read in full, quote:
"
Mu Kôan
One of the most famous traditional Zen kôan , and the one Rinzai masters most often give to beginners as a focus for meditation. The so-called "Mu kôan" appears as the first case in the Mumonkan. A student once asked Zen Master Chao-chou Ts'ung-shen (778-897; J. Jôshû) if a dog has the Buddha Nature. Chao-chou answered, "mu." The word mu (Ch. wu) is a negation that can be translated as "no", "not", "nothing", or "without". It is also used to express emptiness, the Buddhist characterization for ultimate reality. Since the time of Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768), Japanese Rinzai has classified the Mu kôan as a hosshin kôan , that is, a kôan appropriate for beginners seeking kenshô , the initial enlightenment experience. The Mu kôan is also known as Jôshû's Dog
" (btw re: above books writing, the correct transliteration in romaji for the words is kōan ( 公案 (こうあん)), Jōshū ( 趙州 (ちょうしゅう)) and kenshō (?見性? (けんしょう)), it should not be a ô and û - see two of those with linked kanji Japanese Wikipedia pages.)
見性 【けんしょう】 to see the (buddha-)nature
見性悟道 【けんしょうごどう】 seeing one's true nature and awakening to the Way
見性公案 【けんしょうこうあん】 gong-an (kōan) of seeing the true nature
-- Jase 10:35, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
Also, I wonder how that illustrated Zen encyclopedia's authors would respond to User:Jpatokal's randomly accessing it via Google keyword search and then using it in an evident hack of their text, in quoting their work in this misrepresentative apparently vain attempt to cover up his clanging errors evident here, above? Zen requires whole-thinking, how is it that someone can use misrepresentative-not-whole-quotes, appaently for vain purposes. Does someone have to have reached a level of enlightenment about this article's subject of "Mu"-無 (per se, read as "む" (mu)) before having competance to write about it??? I suspect, btw, the answer to that question is "無" too! (per se, read as "む" (mu)) Quoting again for balance here the sentence User:Jpatokal censored from his ref quote: "It is also used to express emptiness, the Buddhist characterization for ultimate reality." -- Jase 07:31, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
Keeping quiet not wasting. More different people please?-- Jase 00:45, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
For me, the main problem with this paragraph is that it seems to contain a lot of original research. The words "Commonly" and the phrase "widely if not commonly" really do, without citation, make the information presented sound unverifiabile. Further, regardless of the dictionary meaning of "mu", any unsupported comment about what Joshu's response meant (including that "the question itself was meaningless") is POV until it is clearly demonstrated that beyond the article's text such a meaning is generally agreed-upon. The meaning of Joshu's response is important enough to the article to be supported by citation (if Joshu's meaning needs to be defined at all!). I think the whole paragraph should stay archived here until someone can come up with some numbers about scholarly "mu" usage (lexical analysis beyond the dictionary, beyond "everyone in Japan says it") and some scholarly conjecture re: Joshu's meaning (conjecture beyond the vague "it's a household word and in children's books, too!"). DaAnHo ( talk) 06:18, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Having no formal knowledge of Japanese (or Zen), I depend on others for enlightenment. To avoid a headache, I have arrived at a synthesis as follows: Each question is asked out of a 'position' or 'world view'. That world view determines how the question is framed, and may often be inferred from the question itself. My (synthesised) interpretation of 'Mu' is that the world view, out of which the question was formed, is too 'narrow' to contain any appropriate answer. For me 'Unask the question" is transformed into "Go away and enlarge your world view. Then reframe the original question. You may, however, find that with your larger world view the question no longer arises".
You will enhance my education with a kind response! —Preceding unsigned comment added by PatManOz ( talk • contribs) 19:41, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Is Mu meant to answer only to yes/no questions? I take it that eg. a woman or kid can answer the question "When did you last shave your beard?" with "Mu" (women and kids don't shave). But if "mu" is used only for yes/no questions, the usage would be wrong 91.132.141.80 ( talk) 12:32, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Is it pronounced like "Moo" or "Mew"? I really really want to know so I can use it when people ask questions like that. 75.133.90.126 ( talk) 01:50, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
A 'constructive' private question;
More like 'moo', in typical English spelling for pronunciation purposes only. I haven't found a WikiMedia sound file for it yet. One Ref':
Complete Japanese Alphabet Song - Katakana - Hiragana - 日本語 (YouTube)
-- macropneuma 04:10, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
..is an embarrassment to Wikipedia. It seems like some overly opinionated self-designated experts are fighting over details the average reader won't even care about. Why not just add a section that teaches the controversy and move on with your lives. ( Bjorn Tipling ( talk) 05:43, 9 June 2011 (UTC))
Maybe I'm hallucinating, but in the main body, it gives the Koan twice, once at the beginning, and again with the Chinese translation. The thing is, in the first it gives the answer as: "Zhaozhou answered, "Wú" (in Japanese, Mu)" but in the second, "The master said, "Not [Mu]!"".
This is confusing to me. Maybe its just over my head, but I get the impression that the page was vandalized and nobody noticed. In one the answer is a negative, in the second it is a double negative. "Mu", or "Not Mu". Which is it? -- Pstanton ( talk) 07:17, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Voltage to represent binary is generally voltage for one and no voltage for zero — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.246.207.200 ( talk) 14:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
I made some changes to the page, taking out a couple of uncited claims which had been sitting around for ages with no support, and adding in some new quotes and references. I also rearranged the order a little. If anyone has any comments on it they can go here. -- Mujokan ( talk) 17:07, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
One of significant teachings in Zen Buddhism is that of emptiness, which is also called mu.
As I see (or feel) the koan, its point is to say: "All is emptiness (mu). However, it's utterly useless to talk about it. You only can understand the answer if you cease using words and labels, and instead experience the emptiness (mu) yourself."
In Zen context, you can replace mu with concept of emptiness as it is undertood in Zen. Trying to fit it into boolean or kleenean logic misses the point.
See eg. http://www.dharmaweb.org/index.php/The_Zen_Concept_of_Emptiness,_or_Mu
194.197.79.18 ( talk) 12:12, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
The article would do well to make the parallel with meaningless propositions as discussed in modern logical tradition over the last hundred years. Bertrand Russell's famous The present King of France is bald - neither true nor false but just (relatively) meaningless, according to Russell and many others, because the first part has no possible reference in a post-1848 world - seems quite parallel to some of those eastern questions, and this is stuff that's been studied by historians of logic. 83.254.151.33 ( talk) 15:57, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
When I first learned of this koan in grade school, my teacher claimed that, in addition to the "no, it doesn't" and "negate the question" interpretations of the word "mu," that "mu" was also the sound that the Japanese used to represent a dog's bark, much like "woof" or "bow wow" in English. The answer Joshu gave was thus also a dog's bark, and he was answering as a dog would to the question, with all the ambiguity that such an answer entails. I see no reference to this in the article, leaving me to wonder if it was left out for some reason, or if my teacher completely fabricated that element. Does anyone know more about this? jSarek ( talk) 23:54, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
First off, may i say i have no experience using wikipedia (or indeed anything to do with buddhism) other than to find information so i apologise if i have done anything wrong in my post but just wanted to point this out. The computer analogy doesnt make sense, and it does not correctly refer to how data is stored. The following is presented:
1). A "(+)" voltage pulse,(or a "Yes" response). 2). A -(0)- voltage (a no-voltage response, or a "No-Thing" response. It may also be considered the reference point for the other two possible responses). 3). A "(-)" voltage pulse, (or a "No" response).
This is incorrect. In general, there are thresholds for logic '1' and logic '0'. above a certain threshold voltage, its is 1, below a certain threshold it is 0. Negative voltage is not normally used. Hence my main point is, a zero voltage is logic zero, and so the analogy used for the term 'mu' doesnt apply. (if you turned a computer off, then there would be no power and so every bit would be zero voltage, and so logic '0'). i am referring to RAM, i suppose it would make sense for a hard drive but it is not written as such.
The computer analogy could however be applied in a different way. In a system that say uses 5v as its supply, a logic level of 2v would be undefined (could be either 1 or 0) and so it could be said is in a 'mu' state. Sorry if this is too nit-picky it probably is lol. 62.31.59.160 00:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)